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Michaud: Mike Wallace's biggest scoop

Mike Wallace, the groundbreaking TV newsman who died last weekend at 93, worked hard at earning his tough-guy image. But he tossed it aside to highlight a problem that many men have difficulty admitting: depression.

This revelation by a highly visible tough guy has encouraged untold numbers to seek help.

Wallace spoke publicly about his depression for the first time during a “60 Minutes” retrospective of his career in 2006. He told the camera that he had tried to commit suicide.

Although it’s more common for women to suffer from depression, men with this affliction more often end their lives, according to research published in the journal Suicide” in 2008. Because families and the press are reluctant to make suicides public, it’s not widely known that suicides are far more common in the United States than homicides — an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 each year.

Depression is hard to admit to. Even with everything we’ve learned about mental illness, it’s often viewed as a moral or personal failing rather than as a medical problem.

Wallace was in his mid-60s when he plunged into a depression that put him in the hospital. He had been fighting a courtroom battle for his journalistic credibility, after being sued by Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the U.S. military in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968.

In the midst of the trial, Wallace remembered, “I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think straight, was losing weight, and my self-esteem was disappearing.”

When Wallace spoke about his depression, his message was that it is treatable — so much so that, at 88, he said the decades since he had begun taking antidepressants had been the best of his life.

When he embraced his depression, Wallace was motivated by a cause larger than himself. This was one tough guy who could inspire us at our weakest.